I'm just going to throw out some graphs to find out what you (or anyone else) think about them.
Keep in mind the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in February of 2009.
Jobs Lost/Gained Per Month:
U.S. Unemployment Rate:
Two comments from me before I hope you respond in kind...
1. The unemployment rate was increasing dramatically as Obama came into office. I find it hard to believe it's possible to go from losing 700,000 jobs a month to losing none or even gaining jobs per month in a one, two or three month period without spending a lot of money. I have just as much reason as anyone else to be pissed off at the government, wall street, the banks and everyone else responsible for this mess -- I'm unemployed myself -- but it's hard for me to believe that what has been described as the worst recession since the Great Depression could be completely turned around in a one or two year period.
2. It appears to me that the stimulus program halted the severely increasing unemployment rate. There was a huge jump in unemployment in just one year, then the AR&R act was passed and soon after... the unemployment rate leveled out and the number of jobs lost per month dropped.
Thoughts?
Obviously more needs to be done to help speed up the recovery of the economy and of course the spending needs to be brought under control, but though the unemployment didn't remain at 8%-ish as we were told it would and though the recovery is still slow... from what appears to me to be an economy turning around right around the time that the stimulus package was passed and an improvement in the economy since, at this point I have to assume the stimulus helped.
I am of course always open for discussion on this. And please, let's keep this civil.
P.S. I'm not sure what you meant by
"your", but Obama's your president too. Just like Bush was my president even though I didn't vote for him and hated his guts. Just saying...
:2wave: